Sunday, January 11, 2009

Chinese New Year Plans Finalized, Sort Of

Just yesterday I was ready to post that our New Year plan was fixed. We had dates for gigs in Shanghai and Hangzhou, airplane tickets purchased, hotel reservations made, but a wrench has been thrown into the works. Apparently a plane ticket from Shanghai to our final travel destination of Urumqi in Xinjiang was double the typical price due to the high demand during the Chinese New Year travel season. Standing in line waiting for a train ticket would also have been prohibitively time consuming given our performance schedule. There would also be no guarantee of actually getting the ticket.

Our new travel arrangement is to fly from Chengdu to Xinjiang on the 25th of this month, spend a couple weeks traveling, slaughtering some lambs, drinking Bai Jiu, and mainly just trying to stay warm up there in the frozen desert. Once the crazy holiday bustle slows down, we will take the two to three day train ride from Xinjiang back to Chengdu, enjoying what should be some incredible views from the train window. Once we are back in Chengdu we will continue preparing for a jazz concert series being held by the JZ jazz clubs of Hangzhou and Shanghai. We should be slotted for a performance sometime during the next month. Check back for more updates though as this current plan could very well be tossed out in the next few days.

In other news, the band played a very well received show at the Little Bar 小酒馆 on Friday. The stage is almost exclusively used for rock and metal bands, so it was a pleasant surprise to get such a warm reception from the crowd and management. In fact, talks are currently underway to set up a semi-regular performance. The Lao Wai Jazz Note will keep you posted!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Come on over! We here in Xinjiang are in DESPERATE need of some good jazz.

Good luck with the rest of the ticket stuff.

Anonymous said...

I hope the tour is going well! Have a happy 牛 year and good luck spreading quality music throughout China!